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Paul Philip Levertoff and The Popularization of Kabbalah
Paul Philip Levertoff and The Popularization of Kabbalah
Paul Philip Levertoff and The Popularization of Kabbalah
Elliot R. Wolfson
The abyss
gapes at us.
When shall we
dare to fly?
- D enise L evertov
Through the centuries there have been Jewish apostates that have availed
themselves of kabbalistic lore, and particularly the zoharic compilation, to
make the case for the coalescence of the faith they were leaving behind and the
faith they were embracing, a coalescence that rests on the presumed shared
mystical underpinnings of the teachings of Jesus, the Pharisees, and the
1
Rabbis. In this study, I will concentrate on one of the more interesting
examples of this phenomenon, Paul Philip Levertoff, fittingly referred to as the
2
'patriarch of Jewish Christian writers' in the twentieth century.
The bibliography of scholars who have opined on the esoteric nature of some of
the teachings ofJesus, especially in Gnostic texts that may have been connected
historically to the Jewish Christianity of the Ebionite Jerusalem Church, is
considerable. A discussion of this subject lies beyond the purview of this study, so
I will refrain from listing the relevant material with the exception of noting the
recent summary by Samuel Zinner, The Gospel of Thomas in the Light of Early
Jewish, Christian and Islamic Esoteric Traditions, with a Contextualized
Commentary and a New Translation ofthe Thomas Gospel, London 2011, pp. 44M
64, 88M96. See also the useful historical overview ofPinchas E. Lapide, Hebrew in
the Church: The Foundations ofJewish-Christian Dialogue, Grand Rapids 1 984.
2
Yaak:ov Ariel, Evangelizing the Chosen People: Missions to the Jews in America,
Chapel Hill 2000, p. 91.
Kabbalah: Journalfor the Study ofJewish Mystical Texts 27 (2012), pp. 269-320
270 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
Biographical Sketch
3
The basic details ofLevertoff's biography have been recounted and here I will
.... offer . a brief summary. There are some facts for which. we can .. assume a
measure of historical veracity, but there is still much hidden by the haze of
4
time. Originally given the name Feivel, Levertoff was born in Orsha, Belarus
· 5
(in the province of Vitebsk), either on October 12, 1875 or October 14, 1878.
The family moved to Krukov, a suburb of the Ukrainian city of Krementchug.
Paul's oldest daughter, Olga Levertoff (1914-1964), reported that her father's
lineage can be traced to the Jews of Spain, who migrated to Russia at the time
of the Spanish inquisition, and 'intermarried with other Jewish families noted
for their piety and learning'. 6 If this information is accurate, then we can
3
Jorge Quiii6nez, 'Paul Phillip Levertoff: Pioneering Hebrew-Christian Scholar
and Leader,' Mishkan 37 (2002), pp. 21-34. See F. N. Davey, 'Adolf Schlatter and
Paul Philip Levertoff - A Brief Introductory Note,' in Adolf Schlatter, The
Church in the New Testament Period, translated by Paul P. Levertoff, London
1961, pp. ix-x; and the entry on Levertoff by Karina Lehnardt in the
Biographisch-Bibliographisches KirchenLexikon, available at http://www.bautz.
de/ bbkV l/Levertoff.shtml.
4
Quiii6nez, 'Paul Phillip Levertoff,' p. 22, notes that in a letter that Shaul Levertoff·.
wrote to his son he refers to him as Feivel. The source he gives is the Denise
Levertov Papers, M060l, Box 15, 17. Quinonez's study is adapted as
Folder
'Feivel the Chasid,' in Paul Phillip Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, with
Introduction, Biography, Bibliography, and Explanatory Notes, Marshfield 2009�
pp. 1-9. Henceforth all references to this work will be from the first edition with
the corresponding pagination of the second edition placed in parentheses. For a
brief review essay of the new edition, see Boaz Michael, 'Love and the Messianic
Age,' Messiah Journal 101 (2009), pp. 27-31. In my own examination of this
archive on March 11, 20 I 0, in the Department of Special Collections, Green
Library, Stanford University, I came upon a postcard written by Shaul Levertoff to
his son in M0601, Box 35, Folder 8. In that letter, which is a passionate
expression of the father's concern for his son's departing from his ancestral
tradition and for his failing to respond to previous communications, there is no
reference to the name Feivel. The extent of Levertoff's filial respect, in spite of
what must have been an incredibly strained relation, is attested in his dedication in
Love and the Messianic Age, London 1923, based on the words of Jesus
describing Nathaniel in John 1:47: TO MY FATHER: 'An Israelite indeed in ·
ed. Lev Gillet, London 1939, p. 93. Based on this evidence, Quinonez, 'Paul
Elliot R. Wolfson 271
16
Levertov, Tesserae, p. 7.
17
Levertoff, 'Paul Levertoff and the Jewish-Christian Problem,' p. 94.
18
Quinonez, ' Paul Phillip Levertoff,' pp. 2 1 -34. For other accounts of Levertoff s
spiritual and intellectual biography, see Levertoff, 'Paul Levertoff and the Jewish
Christian Problem,' pp. 93- 1 1 0; Lev Gillet, Communion in the Mess iah: Studies in
the Relationship between Judaism and Christianity, Cambridge ' 1 942, pp. 203-
204; Leonard Prager, Yiddish Culture in Britain: A Guide, Frankfurt am Main
1 990, p. 405.
274 Paul Philip Levertoffand the Popularization of Kabbalah
appear under the name of the other translators, Harry Sperling and Maurice
Simon, but when he refused, a compromise was reached and his name
·
appeared together with the others, even though he did the work on his own. 19
- To be precise, volume t hree; which includes a·translation from Shemott o part
of Terumah, is attributed to Sperling, Simon, and Levertoff, and volume four,
which includes the remainder of Terumah. until Shemini of Leviticus, is
attributed to Simon and Levertoff. The exact wording in the 'Publishers' Note'
to the third volume of The Zohar is: 'The Soncino Press desires to
acknowledge the services of Dr. Paul P. Levertoff, whose work in
collaboration with the translators of the first two volumes has materially helped
to expedite publication of Volume III'. The information was purposely
misleading, since Levertoff was solely responsible for the translation of the
zoharic material on Exodus.
Less known are other works that Levertoff translated as part of the
campaign to propagate his messianic faith: the Hebrew translation of
Augustine's Confessions ( 1 906); the English version and annotation of the
Midrash Sifre on Numbers: Selections from Early Rabbinic Scriptural
Interpretations ( 1 92 6); and a hitherto unpublished German translation of
Pesiqta Rabbati, which was prepared for the Research Institute for
Comparative Religion at the University of Leipzig.Z0 As part of his missionary
activity, he also translated the work of others, for example, Franz Werfel, Paul
19
Beatrice Levertoff, 'Ten Years at Holy Trinity, Shoreditch,' The Church and the
Jews 94 (1933), pp. 18-19, The matter is recoWlted as well in Paul Philip
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age: Study Guide and Commentary, Marshfield
2009, p. 18. Compare Levertoff, 'Paul Levertoff and the Jewish-Christian
Problem,' p. 105.
20
A copy of the translation is available in the Denise Levertov Papers, M060 I, Box
33, Folders 1-2, Department of Special Collections, Green Library, Stanford
University. On occasion in other publications, Levertoff would refer to his
translation. See, for example, the xerox of the summary of a lectUre delivered by
Levertoff to the Society of the Study of Religions, 1951, 'The Shekinah Motif in
the New Testament Literature,' Denise Levertov Papers, M0601, Box 34, Folder
I, p. 2, Department of Special Collections, Green Library, Stanford University.
The summary of the lecture has been published more recently as 'The Shechinah
Motif: Levertoff's Jewish Christology,' Messiah Jouma/ 100 (2009), pp. 43-49: I
w ill c ite from this version since it is more readily available to the reader. The
relevant passage where the translation of Pesiqta Rabbati is mentioned appears on
p. 45. According to Olga Levertoff, 'Paul Levertoff and the Jewish-Christian
Problem,' p. 99, her father was also commissioned to translate the Palestinian
Talmud with a commentary, but the project was never accomplished.
Elliot R. Wolfson 275
21
Levertoff could boast knowledge of Russian, German, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek,
Latin, English, Yiddish and Arabic. See Levertov, Tesserae, p. 8 .
Paul Phillip Levertoff, 'Editorial,' The Church and the Jews 19 ( 1 92 9), p. 4.
22
Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times, and Teaching, translated by
23
more heinous a crime . . . Y�t, strangely, the very fact that he was sincere, while it·
.
magnified the crime, enhanced the prestige of the criminal!' (emphasis in,
original).
24
. ·.
See the brief comments on Buber in Paul Levertoff, Die religiose Denkweise dilr ..
Chassidim nach den Que/len dargeste/lt, Leipzig 1 918, p. 1 53, and see idem, 'Th�"
Changing Attitude of the Modem Jew to Jesus Christ,' The Church and the JeWs·
1 77 ( 1954), pp. 8.:.9.
25
For instance, see the section on the origin and history of I:Iasidism in Levertoff,'
Die religiose Denkweise, pp. 128- 1 45.
26
See Gershom Scholem, Kabbalah, Jerusalem 1 974, p. 241 , where mention is only
made of Harry Sperling and Maurice Simon as translators of the Soncino edition':
of the Zohar. By contrast, Daniel C. Matt, 'Translator's Introduction,' The Zohar:
Pritzker Edition, Translation and Commentary by Daniel C. Matt, vol. 1 , Stanfor4:
2004, p. xix, does include Levertoffs name, even though he concurs with ·
Scholem's overall negative assessment of the translation.
27
Typical of this lacuna is the complete lack of reference to Levertoff in the .·
otherwise comprehensive treatment of previous views on the zoharic literary·
phenomenon in Daniel Abrams, Kabbalistic Manuscripts and Textual Theory:·
Methodologies of Textual Scholarship and Editorial Practice in the Study of
Jewish Mysticism, with a foreword by David Greetham, Los Angeles 201 0, pp;
224-428. I mention Abrams not to disparage his contribution, but only to
demonstrate how irrelevant Levertoff has become to the history of zoharic�.·
scholarship.
Elliot R. Wolfson 277
28
Abram Poljak, 'The Cross in the Star of David,' The Church and the Jews 114
( 1938), p. 56.
29
These words appear on the copyright page of Levertoff, Love and the Messianic
A ge: Study Guide and Commentary. See Boaz Michael, 'Vine of David: The
Glory of the People of Israel,' Messiah Journal 101 (2009), p. 13, who notes that
the work and biographies of Levertoff and Yechiel Sevi Lichtenstein 'provide the
modem Messianic Jewish movement with a much-needed sense of rootedness. It
reminds us that we are not just a late-twentieth-century, North-American
phenomenon, but rather the result of God's spirit moving for more than a century.
They remind us that we have our own scholars, our own heroes, and our own
saints'. In addition to the publication of a new edition of Love and the Messianic
Age, Levertoffs Die religiOse Denkweise der Chassidim nach den Que/len
dargestellt is presently being translated into English as part of the Messianic
Luminaries Series, according to the website of the First Fruits of Zion,
http://vineofdavid.org/ projects/ index.html. See also Michael, 'Vine of David,' p.
14. Two short selections from this work translated by Kevin Hanke have already
been published. See Paul Philip Levertoff, 'The Chasidic Doctrine of Salvation:
Religious Ideas of the Chasidim Chapter l, Section 1,' Messiah Journal 106
(2011), pp. 44-49; idem, 'The Love of God: Religious Ideas of Chasidim Chapter
1, Section 2,' Messiah Journal 107 (2011), pp. 4 7-52.
278 Paul Philip Leverto ff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
30
'Preface' to Love and the Messianic Age: Study Guide and Commentary, pp. 1 1 -
21.
31
A list of the primary sources used by Levertoff is provided as the third appendix
inLove and the Messianic Age: Study Guide and Commentary, pp. 1 65-169.
32
The same sources are referenced frequently in the German study, Dei religiose
Denkweise der Chassidim nach den Quellen dargestellt.
33
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. v ( 2 1 n. 1 0).
34
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, pp. 5 n. 7 (34 n. 28), 1 1 n. 20 ( 3 8 n. 42),
27 n. 13 (52 n. 9 1 ). .
.35
Ibid., pp. 1 6 n. 29 (42 n. 5 3 ), 2 1 n. 1 6 (46 n. 73), 25 n. 6 ( 50 n. 84). Technically,
Sha 'ar ha-Te.fillah is a section from the first part of Sha 'arei Teshuvah.
36
Ibid., p. 6 n. 9 (35 n. 30).
37
The influence of Shneur Zalman of Liadi on Levertoff's Love and Marriage is
duly noted by Michael, 'Love and the Messianic Age,' p. 28.
38
The expression appears, for example, on the title page of Paul Phillip Levertoff,
Seder Qiddush di-Se 'udata de-Maika Qaddisha al pi Nusa.(l ha-/fasidim ha
Meshi.{Iiyyim [The Order of the Meal of the Holy King: A Hebrew-Christian
Liturgy], second, revised edition, London 1 926. The ftrst edition was published in
1 925; see Quifi6nez, 'Paul Phillip Levertoff,' p. 29. A Latin translation appears in
'Dr. Levertoff's Liturgy in Latin: Missale Judreorum Fidei Christianre (Ordo
Elliot R. Wolfson 279
phraseology is quite deliberate, encapsulating his belief that the theology and
practices promulgated by I:Iabad I:Iasidism are in perfect accord with the
teachings of Christianity. 39 My objective here is to provide a more exacting
philological and textual analysis th a t will pinpoint preCisely the ways in which
Jewish mystical doctrines are exploited by Levertoff to shape his messianic
vision. In Levertoff one can detect the unrelenting ambition to popularize
kabbalistic teachings, and especially as they are expressed in ijabad doctrines,
refracted through the prism of his Christological reading.
elucidation of her father's work, at times even repeating his words verbatim
without attribution:
th
The }ia,sidic, i.e. mystic(ll, moveiT1�nt oftllc 1 8 cc�tury r eleas�d all the incipient
mysticism in Judaism. Jewry has a lways repressed this tendency, preferring to be
known to the wor ld as a legalisti c rath er than as a contemplative people. Y et
genuine Jewish spiritua lity is found in Hasidism and in the cabalistic movements
wh ich preceded it. . . . They have produced a type of mysticism, piety and
meditation which approaches uncanni ly near to the Christian method and spiritual
41
language.
Even though the daughter has conscientiously transmitted the teaching of her
father, I would mark a decisive difference in nuance between the two, which
may be related to the fact that Olga was not as conversant with the texts and
rituals of traditional Judaism. The cliched characterization of Judaism as a
spiritless religion of law is precisely what Levertoff set out to combat.
Consider, for example, his remark in the preface to Love and the Messianic
Age that his goal is to prove that 'traditional orthodox Judaism has no lack of
spiritual fervour' and that even the 'sea of Talmud' has 'its gulf stream of
mysticism' .42 I will return to this theme below, but suffice it here to say that
from Levertoff's standpoint, the fount of Jewish mysticism had to be opened
and channeled in a relatively straightforward way to reveal the Jewish nature of
Christianity and the Christian nature of Judaism. This is not to deny that
Levertoff was keenly aware of the disparity between the two faiths. He thus
concludes the preface by stating that it is his hope that 'Jewish readers of this
little book will realise that the difference between Hasidic and Christian
conceptions of Love is not a difference of degree, but of quality, a difference
betwe�n expectation and realisation'.43 At first glance, this would seem to be
ratifying the standard supersessionism-Judaism is the expectation and
41
Olga Lev ertoff, The Wailing Wall, London 1 937, pp. 34-36. In the note, the author
r efers to h er fat her's Love and the Messianic Age and Die religiOse Denkweise der
Chassidim.
42
L evertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. vii (23).
43
Ibid., p. viii (19). Compare L evertoff, 'Paul L evertoff and the Jewish-Christian
Problem,' p. 99. Olga writes that her father was seeking 'a form of Christian
expression which should enshrine the mystical aspirations of that Chassidic
Judaism which he considered to be the highest form of Jewish thought, and which
he has a lways found exceedingly valuable as a br idge between the Jewish outlook
an d the theologica l concepts of Christian ity. In other words, 'Ch ristianity
expressed i n Jewish termst has· a lways meant, to Levertoff, "Chassidic termsttJ
(emphasis in original).
Elliot R. Wolfson 281
44
Paul P. Levertoff, 'Editorial', The Church and the Jews 106 (1936), p. 4.
45
Levertoff, The Wailing Wall, pp. 99-101. The author hypothesizes that the Nazi
persecution of the Jews might help purge them and ultimately bring them closer to
the very Messiah they rejected. In a somewhat self-serving manner, Olga also
notes that Hitler's criterion to determine the Jewish status of his victims led to the
'extraordinary concession' that 'a Christian Jew should be admitted as a Jew by
his fellow Jews' (p. 101). On the role of Nazism as a catalyst to consolidate
Jewish Christians as a social movement, see Levertoff, 'Paul Levertoff and the
Jewish-Christian Problem,' pp. 104-105, and see ibid., p. 109, where the author
speaks about the 'Jewish Christian victims of Nazi-ism' and the 'prominent part'
her father played 'in the defence of Jewry . .. against the menace of Fascistic
propaganda'.
46
Paul Philip Levertoff, 'Worship,' The Church and the Jews 94 (1933), p. 11.
282 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
the universal truth of Jesus is no better than the Jew who stubbornly rejects this
truth by holding fast to the particular supremacy of Israel's election. Levertoff
well understood that the intolerance of Nazi rhetoric was dangerously aligned
with a missionizing tactic based on supersessionism. Tellingly, already in
1929, he reports that the 'large audiences of Jews' in Poland, Russia, Hungary,
and other countries in Central Europe, who came to hear him preach
Christianity did not consider him an 'apostate, ' but a 'prophet'. 49 The
implication-of this seemingly arrogant distinction is made clear in Levertoff's
further comment that his lecturing tours, as well as his Hebrew book on the life
of Jesus, helped inspire Jews to accept the belief in Christ without joining
47
Ibid., p. 12. Compare Levertoff, The Wailing Wall, pp. 1 07-1 08: 'Canthe pagart,, ·
In a manner that might strike the ear as odd for someone whose life was
committed to miss ionizing, Levertoff went so far as to say that
proselytising, even with the best of intentions, is not in accordance with the mind
of our Lord. . . . Christians must realize, once for all, that the Jewish people is an
entity which . . . is held together not only by their traditional religious observances
but by the whole atmosphere which they have created for themselves during the
centuries. Any Jew who steps out, as it were, from this world is considered to be an
apostate and an enemy of his people. 53
50
Ibid., p. 6.
51
Ibid., p. 5.
52
Ibid., p. 6.
53
Ibid.
54
Ibid., pp. 6-7. Continuing her father's approach, Olga writes in The Wailing Wall,
p. 1 1 3 : 'There i s no need to send anyone "out" to the Jews, no possibility of doing
so, in fact, since they are not "out". . . . They are so well "in" that numbers of
people apparently wish them out and away. . . . Organized proselytising missions
are a foolish proposition in regard to the Jews, for the Jews, unfortunately, see
their Christian neighbours at very close range. . . . Organized missionary activity is
284 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
resented by the Jews because they are on an equal cultural level with the people
who are attempting their conversion'.
55
Elliot R. Wolfson, Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical
Revision ofMena}Jem Mendel Schneerson, New York 2009, pp. 229, 26 1 -262.
56
Ibid., p. 392 n. 1 79. Compare Levertoffs own discussion iil Love and the
Messianic Age, p. 44 (67), of the sinner who is 'converted'.
57
Paul Philip Levertoff, The Possibility of a Hebrew-Christian Church, Edinburgh
1 924, p. 4, cited by Quifi6nez, ' Paul Phillip Levertoff', p. 28. According to the
Catalogue of the Libraries at Harvard University, the pamphlet was also published
in London by the Conference of Missionary Societies in Great Britain and Ireland,
sometime in the 1 920's.
58
·
In Jewish mysticism the three principle attributes of God are sometimes as fol lows:
in the centre is Love; at the right hand is Grace; on the left is Beauty, which also
signifies Kingdom. Has anyone ever thought of fonnulating the doctrine of the
Trinity in tenns of Jewish mysticism such as these? The Trinity is· a · cortcept·which,
fonnulated in Hellenic tenns, is confusing and peculiarly distasteful to a Jew. But
the very shape of the Jewish definition is suitable for Christian use; it confonns to
the shape of the blessing-'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of
God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit'. . . . ' Fellowship' connects up well with
60
'Kingdom' ; the rest is identical.
Olga's presentation of the sefirot is a bit idiosyncratic, as she has placed love
(ahavah) in the middle, grace (l;esed) on the right, and beauty (t{f'eret) and
kingdom (malkhut) on the left. Be that as it may, her main point is clear
enough: the resonance of the kabbalistic doctrine with the Christian Trinity
allows for the expression of the latter in the guise of the former, and this is the
way that Jews need to be approached by Christians. If the Jew is enticed to
worship Jesus in a Jewish manner, then the prospect of conversion need not
61
result in assimilation : ' Jewry must remember her own riches before she can
incorporate them into the riches of Christ. And this can only come about if
Christian Jews remember and re-learn them . . . . It is my conviction that, were
Jewry to find Christ, she would recover her long-lost vigour and discover a
soul; would become a corporate entity once more, not by destroying all traces
of the entity which once existed, but by transforming it. . . . One feels and
knows, somehow, that the acceptance of Christ by the Jewish people will usher
in some new age . . . . one knows too that they are indeed the key which should
62
and will u nlock the doors of the Kingdom' . The daughter has faithfully
articulated the worldview of her father that Christ can be worshipped in an
result of centuries of growing prejudice on the part of Jews and a lack of vision on
the part of Christians, who have consistently tried to unjew the Jew, so that to-day
"to become a Christian" means, for a Jew, a clean break with everything, a denial
of all that has made him, the renunciation of his religious traditions if he has any,
and, in addition, of all that he means, racially, socially, by "Judaism"'.
60
Ibid., p. 115 (emphasis in original). See ibid., p. 129, where the 'Zoharic mystics'
are invoked for having understood that the multifaceted 'personality' of God does
not diminish the monotheistic belief.
61
For a passionately negative assessment of the assimilationist trend in twentieth
century, post-traditional Jewry, see Levertoff, 'The Changing Attitude,' pp. 6-7.
62
Levertoff, The Wailing Wall, pp. 115-118 (emphasis in original).
286 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
Christianity begins with the personal relationship between God and man in the Old
Covenant, and it culminates in the close personal union of God and man in the
New Covenant through Jesus Christ, in Whom both natures are inseparably one.
These two Covenants are not two different religions, but two phases of one and the
65
Ibid., pp. 50-5 I . Some of this material was repeated in Paul Philip Levertoff,
'Reflections on Judaism and Christianity, ' The Church and the Jews 180 (1954),
p. 9.
66
See above, n. 38. The prayer is discussed and cited in Levertoff, The Wailing
Wall, pp. 1 21- 1 35. See also Levertoff, ' Paul Levertoff and the Jewish-Christian
Problem,' pp. 1 02- 1 03; Polj ak, 'The Cross in the Star of David,' pp. 50-53.
67
Zohar 2:88b. The zoharic background of the expression se 'udata de-malka
qaddisha is noted in Levertoff, The Wailing Wall, p. 1 23.
68
Yehuda Liebes, 'The Poems for the Meals of Sabbath Composed by the Holy
Ari, ' Malad 4 ( 1972), pp. 540-555, esp. 541, 549, 553 [Hebrew].
288 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
69
Levertoff, ' Editorial,' p. 7 .
70
Levertoff, 'Paul L evertoffand the Jewish-Christian Problem,' pp. 94-95.
71
Ibid., p. 95.
72
Ibid., pp. 97-98. The point is repeated in Levertoff: The Wailing Wall, p. 1 1 3 :
'Christianity is Judaism with its h opes fulfilled. The fact that the heritag� of Israel
is our heritage too, the fact that all our background is theirs, makes the task not
easier but desperately difficult' (emphasis in origina l).
73
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 2 (32).
Elliot R. Wolfson 289
74
See Levertof'l: St. Paul in Jewish Thought, p. 5, and the analysis in Langton, The
Apostle Paul, pp. 1 38- 143 .
75
Levertov, Tesserae, p. l l (emphasis in original). Regarding -this comment, see
John Felstiner, '"0 Taste and See": The Question -of Content in American Jewish
Poetry,' Jewish Social Studies 5 (1998), p. 1 1 7.
76
The Confessions of St. Augustine, translated by Paul Levertoff, London 1 908, p.
IX.
77
The statement of Simmons is cited in Levertoff, 'Worship' , pp. 9 and 1 3
(emphasis in original).
78
Ibid.., p. 1 3 (emphasis in original).
290 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
Levertoff eloquently extols the Zohar as the 'very bible' for Jewish, Christian,
and especially Hebrew-Christian mystics, insofar as it is the great repository
whose teachings bring to light not only the 'true spirit' of Judaism but also of
Christianity. 79 I will elaborate in the next section on Levertoffs insights
regarding the zoharic composition, but suffice it here to emphasize that, in his
view, the kabbalists hidden pseudepigraphically in the text-the 'Zoharitic
Rabbis '-placed Jesus at the center of their vision and hence they can serve as
a pertinent model for Christians to emulate. Along similar lines, Levertoff
commented on the ' wealth of Christ-ward implication . . . in the light of
Messianic fulfillment' that one could educe from a lengthy discourse in the
Zohar on the theosophic intricacies of prayer. 80 To make such claims, of
course, flies in the face of the literal meaning, since the name of Jesus is
nowhere mentioned explicitly in the numerous homilies preserved in the text.
8
This is not to deny implicit references, often polemical in nature, 1 and indeed,
although Levertoffs assertions obviously show evidence of his personal bias
and existential circumstances, there is a grain of historical truth, inasmuch as
the theosophic symbolism expressed in many of the zoharic homilies, not to
mention other medieval kabbalistic sources, is informed by a delicate and
complex relationship to Christological doctrines. This is especially evident in
the area of gender construction: the Christian occupies the role of the castrated
male, that is, the male who is emasculated because he i s without a female
79
Michael, ' Love and the Messianic Age,' p. 27, makes this very point when he
remarks that Levertoff 'recognized themes, ideas, and concepts in the Gospels that
were common in Jewish mysticism and Chasidus. He wondered how anyone could
hope to really grasp the message of the New Testament if unfamiliar with the
Jewish background' .
. 80
Levertoff, 'Worship,' p. 7. The passage to which Levertoff refers is Zohar 2: 1 3 3a
b.
81
Yehuda Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, translated by Arnold Schwartz, Stephanie
Nakache, Penina Peli, Albany 1 993, pp. 1 39- 1 6 1 ; Elliot R. Wolfson, Language,
Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination, New York 2005,
pp. 255-260; idem, Venturing Beyond: Law and Morality in Kabbalistic
Mysticism, Oxford 2006, pp. 135- 1 54; Daniel Abrams, 'The Virgin Mary as the
Moon that Lacks the Sun: A Zoharic Polemic Against the Veneration of Mary,'
Kabbalah 2 1 (201 0), pp. 7-56; Ellen Haskell, 'The Death of Rachel and the
Kigdom of Heaven: Jewish Engagement with Christian Themes in Sefer ha
·
counterpart, and the circumcised Jew , the role of the virulent male to whom the
female is restored as a consequence of heterosexual coupling.82
Even though I would still insist that these clandestine references do not ..
..
measure Up tO the view espoused by Levertoff ihaiJesus occupies the center of
the zoharic vision, the veracity of the belief he espoused is, paradoxically
enough, substantiated by the glaring absence of any images of Jesus. This
conforms to the dynamic of Jewish esotericism-the secret is revealed by
being concealed, for only in being concealed can the secret be revealed in its
secrecy. Ironically, on this hermeneutical basis, the lack of explicit reference to
Christ can be turned into the strongest proof that the esoteric import of the text
is to be deciphered as reference to him. [n an essay published many years ago, I
argued that the most evocative factor in a given cultural context may be the one
that is not mentioned overtly, the unspoken, which does not connote 'the mere
absence of speech due to the incommunicability of what is thought, but that
which is withheld from speaking because it provides the ground for what is
spoken' . 83 The same principle can be evoked here to explain how Levertoff
read the zoharic text as a repository of spiritual insights that cast Judaism as
fundamentally in sync with Christianity and Christianity with Judaism.
82
Elliot R. Wolfson, ' Re/membering the Covenant: Memory, Forgetfulness, and the
Construction of History in the Zohar, ' Jewish History and Jewish Memory: Essays
in Honor of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, ed. Elisheva Carlebach, John Efron, and
David Myers, Hanover 1 998, pp. 2 1 4-246, esp. 222-224, revised version in Elliot
R. Wolfson, Luminal Darkness: Imaginal Gleanings From Zoharic Literature,
London 2007, pp. 1 85-227, esp. 1 96- 1 98; idem, Language, Eros, Being, pp. 309-
3 1 2, 385-388, 567 n. 1 2 1 , 596 n. 59; idem, Venturing Beyond, pp. 94-96, 1 5 1 - 1 54.
A similar view has been presented by Daniel Abrams, Ten Psychoanalytic
Aphorisms on the Kabbalah, Los Angeles 20 1 1 , p. 3 3 .
83
Elliot R . Wolfson, ' Martyrdom, Eroticism, and Asceticism i n Twelfth-Century ·
been espoused by more recent scholarship. I will cite in full Levertoff's most
extensive characterization of zoharic literature:
In its present . form, . the Zohar first.. appeared in .Spain in the .. thirteenth century, and ..
while purporting to be but a commentary on the Pentateuch, it is in reality a
thesaurus of mystic contemplations on the Divine Transcendence and Immanence,
on Creation and Redemption, on God and Israel, on Israel a:nd the world, on this
world and the world to come, on holiness and the 'other side' -i.e. sin--on life
and death, on Paradise and Hell. It is written in Aramaic, and is ascribed to the .
second century Galilean Rabbi, Simeon ben Yohai. In spite of its peculiar (and
often bizarre) idiom and method the Zohar is as a jewel set very deep. It is bright,
and gleams, but such radiance has to be sought. The masters of its mysteries did
not desire knowledge of such mysteries to be widespread; rather, they veiled the
glories of which they were cognizant, and guarded the hidden beauty with jealous
secrecy. Its language is curt, pre-supposing intimate knowledge of all the sources
mentioned in its obscure references: its phraseology is soaked in allusions, not only
Biblical but-apparently-contemporaneous; allusions which fascinate by their
elusiveness: suc h as 'The Book of Rabbi Hamnuna the Ancient,' which surely
suggests all that is venerable in scholars and obscure in learning! But when the
p
beauty is revealed and the incom rehensible made plain, what splendour remains !
how the jewel glows and lightens in its dusty settingf what glories flash and beam
5
within its strange radiant depths!8
From this passage it is obvious that Levertoff breaks with the traditional belief
that ascribes the work uncritically to the second-century Palestinian rabbi
Simeon ben Yo.Qai. And yet, he is not willing to accept unqualifyingly the
scholarly view regarding its medieval provenance. At best, he concedes that the
zoharic anthology 'first appeared in Spain in the thirteenth century, ' leaving
open· the possibility that older material-whether transmitted orally or in
writing-has been incorporated into the text Moreover, Levertoff resisted the
view that there was a single author of the Zohar. Instead, he referred to it as a
'thesaurus of mystic contemplations,' and spoke of the fraternity responsible
for its composition as 'masters of its mysteries'. In a second passage, he
6
describes it as the 'testament and apologia' of 'unknown spiritual artists'. 8
Honoring the value attributed to anonymity in the religious-pietistic economy
of traditional Judaism, Levertoff refers to the authors of the Zohar as 'distant'
85
Levertoff, 'Some Aspects,' p. 20. Part of the passage is cited in the 'Preface' to
Love and the Messianic Age: Shtdy Guide and Commentary, p. 1 6.
86
Levertoff, 'Worship,' p. 6; ' Some Aspects/ p. 24.
Elliot R. Wolfson 293
and ' unknown' Jews. 8 7 Following her father's lead, Olga remarked in The
Wailing Wall that while the Zohar may have been 'discovered' by Moses de
Leon, ' it is the work of many hands, ' and she accepts the hypothesis that much
· of its material goes back to antiquity. Thus, echoing the perspective of her
father, she concludes that ' its whole history is wrapped in the mists of
obscurity. It is a literary curiosity, a historical enigma ' . 88 Both the reference to
the multiplicity and the obscurity of the zoharic authors have become more of
the norm in current research .
It is s ignificant that Levertoff depicted the anonymous kabbalists, whose
opinions are preserved in the pages of the Zohar, as ' spiritual artists' . I do not
think this is merely hyperbolic. On the contrary, it attests to his incisive grasp
of the aesthetic dimension of the homilies assembled together in this text and,
in particular, his keen sense for their visual and poetic nature apart from their
theosophical or theological ramifications . In the essay ' Worship, ' and repeated
in ' Some Aspects of Jewish Mysticism' ( 1 934), based on a paper read before
the Victoria Institute, Levertoff refers to a zoharic passage on the ' essence of
ideal worship ' as ' a characteristically pictorial and luminous imagined
89
scene ' . Here , too, we see evidence of his appreciation of the pictographic,
one might even say c inematic, nature of zoharic kabbalah. In a related but
somewhat different terminological register, in the lecture ' The Shekinah Motif
in New Testament L iterature, ' delivered to the Society of the Study of
Religions in 195 1, Levertoff appl ied the epigram ' metaphysicians are poets run
mad' to the kabbalists influenced by zoharic symbolism. 90 Invoking the quality
of madness to portray the ars poetica of the zoharic kabbalists 9 1 -a
manifestation of their prophetic vocation92-attests to Levertoff s sophisticated
87
Levertoff, 'Worship,' p. 1 3.
88
Levertoff, The Wailing Wall, p. 36.
89
Levertoff, ' Worship, ' p. 5 .
90
Levertoff, ' The Shechinah Motif,' p. 47.
91
On the zoharic exegetical creativity as an ars poetica, see Yehuda Liebes, ' Zohar
and Eros,' A lpayyim 9 ( l 994), pp. 67- 1 1 5, esp. 70-80 [Hebrew] .
92
The nexus between prophecy and madness, well attested in many cultural
contexts, was likely suggested by 2 Kings 9 : 1 , Jeremiah 29:26, and Hosea 9:7.
Compare especially the commentary of David Altschuler, Me�dat David, to 2
Kings 9: 1 1 , s.v. ' madman ' (ha-meshuga) : "Thus they called the prophet [by this
name] because at the moment that he meditates on prophecy [mitboded ba
nevu 'ah] it appears to them that he has gone mad, since he is not turned then to
matters of this world." See the discussion on prophrCY and madness in Abraham
Joshua Heschel, The Prophets, New York 1 962, pp. 395-396. On the prophetic
status of the zoharic fraternity, see Elliot R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum That
294 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
93 . Eric R. Dodds, The Greeks. and the Irrational, Berkeley 1 95 1 , pp. 64-IOt;:<;
Michael L. Morgan, Platonic Piety: Philosophy and Ritual in Fourth-.Ce11_�f J1}1
Athens, New Haven 1 990, pp. 1 58-1 87; Josef Pieper, Enthusiasm and Divin�;;
Madness: On the Platonic Dialogue Phaedrus, translated by Richard and Cia@,;'·
Winston, New York 1 964; idem, 'Divine Madness': Plato 's Cas·e againat Sti!cuia�\\
Humanism, translated by Lothar Krauth, San Francisco 1 995; Silk�-Mariai�
Weineck, The Abyss Above: Philosophy and Poetic Madness in Plato, Holderlii!J.:.
and Nietzsche, Albany 2002. For the influence of the Platonic idea: on th(if;,
Christian notion of the holy fool, see Guy G. Stroumsa, "Madness 3n4.w: .
perceptive manner, he observes that 'they veiled the glories of which they were
cognizant, and guarded the hidden beauty with j ealous secrecy' . This
corroborates the hermeneutic of esotcricism thaL infonned . much of the
---e ery e�posure is a concealment, since there is no way for
medievaf kabbalah----\'
the concealed to be exposed unless it is concealed. The secret, therefore, i s a
phenomenon that hides itself in the very act of its being revealed. This
dissi mulation is especially prominent in the zoharic homil ies. As I articulated
the matter in a previous study, the authors responsible for these texts
'consciously dec i ded to conceal the intent of their words by not referring
directly to the theosophic intent. In speaking by not-speaking, or speaking
indirectly, the zoharic kabbalists were emulating what they believed to be the
esoteric nature of Scripture, to hide the secrets in the c loak of the text -
according to an oft-c ited remark in the Sabba de-Mishpatim stratum,94 the wise
ones, who are "full of eyes", can see the secret radiating through the garment
of the letters, mi-go /evusha, through the garment and not by removing the
garment. If the secret can be seen only through the garment, this must i mply
that every disclosure is perforce a concealment' . 95 This dynamic sheds light on
the comparison in the beginning of this l iterary unit between textual
94
Zohar 2 : 98b. This section of the Sabba de-Mishpa!im has been discussed by a
number of scholars. See Elliot R. Wolfson, ' Beautiful Maiden W ithout Eyes:
Pes hat and Sod in Zoharic Hermeneutics, ' The Midrashic Imagination: Jewish
Exegesis, Thought, and History, ed. Michael Fishbane, Albany 1 99 3 , pp. 1 55-203,
reprinted with corrections i n Wolfson, Luminal Darkness, pp. 56- 1 1 0; Wolfson,
Through a Speculum, pp. 3 84-3 88; idem, Language, Eros, Being, pp. 222-224;
Liebes, ' Zohar and Eros, ' pp. 94-98; Michal Oron, "'Place Me As a Seal Upon
Your Heart": Reflections on the Poetics of the Author of the Zohar in the Section
of Sabba de-Mishpatim, ' Massu 'ot: Studies in Kabbalistic Literature and Jewish
Philosophy in Memory of Prof Ephraim Gottlieb, ed. Michal Oron and Amos
Goldreich, Jerusalem 1 994, pp. l -24 [Hebrew] ; Pinchas Giller, ' Love and
Upheaval in the Zohar's Sabba de-Mishpatim,' Journal of Jewish Thought and
Philosophy 7 ( 1 997), pp. 3 1 -60; idem, Reading the Zohar: The Sacred Text of
Kabbalah, Oxford 200 1 , pp. 3 5�68; Daniel Abrams, ' Knowing the Maiden
Without Eyes: Reading the Sexual Reconstruction of the Jewish Mystic in a
Zoharic Parable, ' Da 'at 50-52 (2003), pp. l ix-lxxxiii; Oded Yisraeli, The
Interpretation of Secrets and the Secret of Interpretation: Midrashic and
Hermeneutic Strategies in Sabba de-Mishpatim of the Zohar, Los Angeles 2005,
pp. 1 9 1 -266 [Hebrew]; Hellner�Eshed, A River Flows From Eden, pp. 68-69, 1 60-
1 62.
95
Elliot R. Wolfson, 'The Anonymous Chapters of the Elderly Master of Secrets :
New Evidence for the Early Activity of the Zoharic Circle,' Kabbalah 1 9 (2009),
pp. 1 80- 1 8 1 .
296 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
96
interpretation and the dream, a talmudic idea that appears in several zoharic
97
homilies. After stating categorically that the Torah does not consist of 'words
of a dream, ' whose meaning is determined by the mouth that interprets them,
btif which nonetheless must be interpretcifin a manner that corresponds t() the
.
98
dream, the zoharic author-through the voice of the elder-insists that with
respect to scriptural words, the 'delights of the holy kirig,' it is even more
imperative that they be rendered in concurrence with the 'way of truth,' even
though each one embraces multiple 'words of wisdom' . The contrast between·
the dream and the Torah only highlights the element that ties them together:
just as a dream has both manifest and latent dimensions, so the literal word of
Scripture comprises hidden meanings that must be extracted through skillful
exegesis. Multivocality can be affirmed without presuming that there is no
authorial intent that can be recovered philologically. The same hermeneutic
applies to the zoharic text. That Levertoff well understood this point is attested
in his assertion that the kabbalists responsible for this composition 'veiled the
glories of which they were cognizant'.
Finally, I would note that in spite of his recognition of multiple authors,
Levertoff confidently spoke of a unifying vision. The discretion exemplified in
the willingness not to dichotomize the unity of vision and the multiplicity of
voices stands in sharp contrast to some contemporary scholars who think that'
assuming the is a polygraph-a collectively written volume that'
Zohar
99
champions diverse views -and the consequent rejection of the sear-ch for lll'i '
Urtext challenges the possibility of speaking intelligibly about a singular ....
phenomenon classified as the 'zoharic kabbalah' or the 'zoharic authorship..,. t oo .
In my judgment, extending the boundaries of the text over several centuries
96
Zohar 2:95a. See Liebes, 'Zohar and Eros,' pp. 87-88; Yisraeli, The Interpretation '
ofSecrets, pp. 255-259.
97
See Elliot R. Wolfson, A Dream Interpreted within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and ····
the Prism of Imagination, New York 201 1 , pp. 143-1 77 especially 1 62- 1 7 L
�
Journalfor the Study ofReligions and Ideologies 6 (2007h pp. 1 55-1 56.
Elliot R. Wolfson 297
does not preclude positing a principle of anthologizing that would uni fy the
array of compositional and redactional layers that were eventually organized
into a relatively stable text. Recognition of pll.l�iy()(;a}ity does not undermine
the Solihdriess of positing a uniform st��ce; heterogeneity may itself be
demonstrative of homogeneity, and repetition the impetus for difference. 1 01
This surely fits in with the strategy of reading deployed by Levertoff. To
cite his own words, 'the final aim and all-pervading theme of the whole Zohar,
and the reason at the back of the whole order of its philosophy' is 'the desire to
effect and complete the unity of all things in one volume of glory and
perfection-union of the different aspects of the Divine Personality; union o f
the two ultimate aspects o f the universe, Justice and Mercy; union o f the
1 2
celestial and terrestrial spheres; union of God and Man' . 0 In the continuation,
Levertoff notes that ' in the minds of the unknown spiritual artists whose
testament and apologia the Zohar is, even the mystical ideal of fusion with the
Divine is subject to and but a part of the yet higher aim of glorifying ever more
perfectly the Divine itself. Thus Man becomes at once more humble and more
noble-an instrument only, but actually an instrument with power to exalt and
aid the splendour of the maj esty of the Most High ! ' 1 03 To translate these words
into the lingo that has become central to contemporary scholarship: the
mystical dimension of the human uniting with the divine serves as the means to·
realize the higher theurgic task of unifying the two aspects of God, masculine
grace and feminine judgment. Rather than bifurcating the mystical and the
theurgical, Levertoff perceptively noted their intrinsic connection. He
formulates the anthropological ideal in zoharic kabbalah in terms of several
key l:tasidic doctrines, to wit, hit/ahavut, the enflamed rapture and intimate
enthusiasm, 1 04 hitbodedut, seclusion from social interaction and the meditative
101
I am here responding to the critique of textual idealism in the approach to zoharic
literature offered by Abrams, Kabbalistic Manuscripts and Textual Theory, pp.
464�469, 526-534. For a more comprehensive discussion, see Elliot R. Wolfson,
' Zoharic Literature and Midrashic Temporality,' to appear in Midrash Unbound:
Transformations and Innovations, ed. Michael F ishbane and Joanna Weinberg,
London 20 1 3 .
102
Levertoff, ' Worship,' p. 6.
103
Ibid.
104
See Paul Philip Levertoff, 'Aus der kabbalistisch chassidischen Gedankenwelt,'
Saat auf Hoffnung 5 1 (1914), p. 81. A still useful phenomenological account o f
hitlahavut in I:Iasidism is found in Martin Buber, The Legend of the Baal-Shem,
translated by Maurice Friedman, New York 1 955, pp. 1 7-23 , and see especially p.
40, where he refers to this notion as the 'basic principle of Hasidic life' . See also
298 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization o f Kabbalah
Martin Buber, The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism, edited and translated by
Maurice Friedman, New York 1 960, p. 236, and compare the analysis in Martina
Urban, Aesthetics of Renewal: Martin Buber 's Early Representation of Hasidism
as Kulturkritik, Chicago 2008, pp. 1 25 - 1 30.
105
Moshe Idel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, Albany 1 995, p. 282 n. I I 0.
106
Levertoff, 'Worship,' p. 6.
1 07
Wolfso� Open Secret, pp. 149, 204-209.
1 08
Lev Gillet, 'Questions concernant Ia Chekinah," Judaism and Christianity, p. 33
109
. .
in fact, set out to do was to assess the central creed of Christianity, the divinity
of Jesus, in light of previously held Jewish beliefs. Towards this end, he begins
by noting that the notion of a suffering Messiah is attested in rabbinic sources.
..
The 'Mystery of the Cross,' therefore, may he something of a stumbling-block,
in Paul's infamous language, but it ' is not an entirely foreign idea to a
1
Rabbinical Jew' . 1 1 Prima facie, a far more serious quandary for the rabbinic
mindset is the Johannine doctrine of the incarnate Logos, the mystery of the
Word made flesh, the divine becoming human in the person of C hrist, a tenet
of faith that 'always seemed to Jews to be an infringement upon the belief in
12
the absolute unity of God' . 1 Posing the problem this way i s something o f a
rhetorical ruse as it affords Levertoff the opportunity to articulate the Jewish
Christian supposition that the ancient Israelite belief in the epiphany of the
divine glory is the textual premise for an incamational theology. The first
disciples of Jesus saw in him ' a visible manifestation of God, a soul in which
the Divinity dwells, Jewishly expressed, "the Shekinah"'. He goes on to
explain this rudimentary rabbinic idea, and most interestingly, he remarks that
the term shekhinah was ' used in the first century rabbinic literature as one of
the many substitutes for the Tetragrammaton' . Levertoff thus forges an
inherent connection between the indwelling of the divine and the name, a
Ill
Ibid. On the rabbinic portrayal of messianic suffering, see Michael Fishbane, The
Exegetical Imagination: On Jewish Thought and Theology, Cambridge, MA 1 988,
pp. 73-85. See also Elliot R. Wolfson, 'Divine Suffering and the Hermeneutics of
Reading: Philosophical Reflections on Lurianic Mythology, ' in Suf
fering Religion,
ed. Robert Gibbs and Elliot R. Wolfson, London 2002, pp. 1 0 l - 1 07.
1 12
Levertoff, 'The Shechinah Motif, ' p . 46.
113
Walter H . Pater, Plato and Platonism, London 1 9 1 0, p . 1 43 .
1 14
Levertoff, ' The Shechinah Motif, ' p . 47.
300 Paul Philip Leverto ff and the Popularization o f Kabbalah
t iS
Ibid.
1 16
Elliot R Wolfson, 'The Secret of the Garment in Nal;lmanides,' Da 'at 24 ( 1990)�
pp. xxv-lxix (English section); idem. Language, Eros, Being, p. 252.
1 17
Levertoff, 'The Shechinah Motif,' p. 48. The rabbinic reference is incorrectly
given as Avot 2:3; the mistake also occurs in the typescript of the lecture, and l'
assume the modem editor just repeated the original error.
1 18
Ibid., p. 48.
Elliot R. Wolfson 301
of the Shekinah in the old Covenant were a sort of foretaste of the Incarnation,
when, veiled in our flesh, the All-great revealed Himself as the All-loving in Christ
(...] And when He withdrew from earth into the unveiled glory of God, still He is
manifested; and His life and action are perpetuated, on earth · by His Spirit dwelling ·
in the Church, which is His body. Christ is the Lord of glory, He participates in
1 19
God's glory (I Cor . ii, 8; II Cor. iv, 4) .
1 19
Paul Philip Levertoff, 'The Glory of God in the Face of Jesus,' The Church and
the Jews l 06 ( 1 936), p. 6.
120
Ibid., p. 7 (emphasis in original).
121
Ibid.
122
The reference that Levertoff gives, ibid., p. 8, is the explanation of the name ehyeh
asher ehyeh (Exodus 3 : 1 4) in Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 9b: 'The holy One,
blessed be he, said to Moses, Go and say to the Israelites, I was with you in this
servitude and I shall be with you in the servitude of the kingdoms [of Babylonia
and Rome] ' .
113
Ibid., p . 8.
302 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
Applying this esoteric doctrine to the hymn in Philippians, the name that God
bestowed on Jesus is identified as the Tetragrammaton, the 'name that is above
every name,' and hence he is the appropriate object of liturgical veneration
everyone should bow down to him arid every tongue confess thaf he is the
divine glory. Insofar as Jesus bears the name of YHWH, it follows that
whenever his name is mentioned, he 'is present as the Shekinah, in His saving
and life-giving power. . . . St. Paul is casting upon all creation and redemption
the steadfast and unwavering light of the Divine Presence, the Shekinah' . 1 24
The influence of Jewish mysticism on Levertoff's identification of Jesus as
the Shekhinah becomes even more conspicuous in the concluding section of the
aforementioned lecture. Levertoff emphasizes that God is not a deus
absconditus, but rather the ' ever-present Shechinah in "exile," in the corrupt
1 5
world of sin, undertaking the task of redeeming and regenerating creation' . 2
The rabbinic topos of the Presence in exile is translated from a primarily
historical-nationalistic sense to a cosmological-universalistic one, that is,
Levertoff applies. this idea to the general condition of the immanence of Jesus
in the material world, which is corrupted by human transgression, an
interpretative strategy attested in Q.asidic literature, including ijabad sources.
To illustrate the point I will cite two of many examples from Shneur Zalman of
Liadi. The first passage is from Liqqu{ei Amarim: 'This is the aspect of the
lower repentance to elevate the lower he, to raise her from her fall into the
outer forces, which is the secret of the exile of the Shekhinah, following the
dictum of the rabbis, blessed be their memory/ 26 �'When (Israel] were exiled to':
Edom, the Shekhinah was with them," that is, when a person performs an act
befitting Edom [ma 'aseh edom], he lowers and draws down to there a spark of
1
divinity'. 27 The second text, which expounds the same theme, is from the
collection of Shneur Zalman's homilies, Liqqu{ei Torah: 'The soul of every
person (nefesh ko/ adam] is desirous but the love is in exile and it is hidden, as
(in the dictum] "when they were exiled to Edom, the Shekhinah was with
them," that is, even though they perform an act befitting Edom, the Shekhinah
124
Ibid.
125
Levertoff, 'The Shechinah Motif,' p. 49. Compare idem, Love and the Messianic
Age, p. 26 (5 1 )�
1 26
Mekhilta de-Rabbi Ishmael, ed. I;Iayyim S . Horovitz and Israel A. Rabin,
Jerusalem 1 970, p. 52.
127
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqqu{ei Amarim: Tanya, Brooklyn 20 1 0, pt. 1 , ch. 1 7,
·
128
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqqu(ei Torah, Brooklyn 1 996, Bemidbar, 88b.
1 29
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 1 1 (3 8-39).
1 30
Ibid., p. 11 (3 9).
131
Ibid., p. 3 3 (56), emphasis i n original.
304 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
I32
light in the multiple forms of existence that constitute the world. For the
l;Iabad-Lubavitch masters, as I put it elsewhere, 'the world is not thought to be
.. an i llusion vis-a-vis the hidden essence as. much as it is conceived to be a veil ....
through which the illusion can be apprehended and thereby unveiled for the
illusion it appears to be, an unveiling in which the hidden essentiality is
(un)veiled. Nature, accordingly, is not denied real existence, as if it was the
"veil of Maya," but rather it is the veil that reveals the unveiling of the veiL
The one who acquires this gnosis perceives that the world is suffused with
divine reality, that there is, paraphrasing the zoharic language favored by many
n3
l)asidic masters, 'no place devoid of the divine' . 134
The nullification, therefore, is an alternate way of expressing, in Levertoff' s
words, the 'longing' of all contingent beings 'for the Messianic redemption,
135
through which God's immanence will be fully realized' . Inasmuch as
creation is brought forth by an act of self-limitation on the part of God-the
kabbalistic !lOtion of �m�m, which Levertoff depicts as 'God's condescending
1 36 137
love' -it follows that the ' actual sight of God' to be attained in the time
of the Messiah would consist of seeing the concatenation of the worlds
divulged as the fa�ade through which the light of infinity is manifestly hidden
138
and hiddenly manifest. To be sure, Levertoff appeals to 'Hasidic �heology'
to support his distinction between the two kinds of knowledge of the divine,
the 'static' or the 'rational' knowledge, which results f:rom 'studying Creation, '
and the 'dynamic' or the ' mystic' knowledge, which relates to the ' inner being
of God/ the knowledge that leads to the all-consuming love and the 'beatific
vision� to be 'achieved Under the Messianic dispensation' . Levertoff is adamant
132
Wolfson, Open Secret, pp. 66- 129, esp. 87- 1 03.
133
I am here alluding to the statement in Tiqqunei Zohar, ed. Reuven Margaliot,
Jerusalem 1 978, sec: 70, 122b, leit atar panuy minneih, 'there is no place devoid
of him'. Regarding this passage, see my comments in Open Secret, p. 341 n. 1 72
(Iwould like to correct my inadvertent mistake in rendering both minneilt and
minnah by the second person pronoun instead of the obviously correct third
person).
134
Wolfson, Open Secret, 11· 96. For discussion of previous scholars who have
compared the }:labad perspective, usually labeled as ' acosmism/ with the
Vedantic principle of Maya, see ibid, p. 341 n, 1 4 1 . Unfortunately, I neglected to
mention the interesting discussion in Joseph P. Schultz, Judaism and the Gentile
Faiths: Comparative Studies in Religion, Rutherford 1 98 1 , pp. 92-94.
135
Levertoff: Love and the Messianic Age, p. 12 (40).
136
Ibid., pp. 6-7 (35-36).
137
.
Ibid., p. 2 (32).
138
Wolfson Open Secret, pp. 25-27, 52, 83-85, 87, 96, 98.
Elliot R. Wolfson 305
that since the material creation is ' merely' God ' s ' picture,' we best know God
in his transcendent holiness and wisdom . 1 39 However, the ijabad sources
utilized by Levertoff offer a different perspective, and on occasion Levertoff s
own · thinking seems·· ·to· ·challenge his hinary distinction: · the ·· knowledge ·· of
God ' s inner being is acquired through contemplating creation, for it i s only by
means of the latter that one can perceive the footprints of the invisible . With
respect to this issue the correspondence between the Q.asidic and the
Christological, particularly as may be elicited from the Johannine gospel140-
the book that Levertoff suggests is probably the ' most "Hasidic" writing in the
New Testament' 1 4 1 -is transparent: just as the Father kenotically gives of
himself through Jesus, the 'organ of God's love' 1 42 that reveals itself as the
' Light of the World, ' 1 43 the bestowal of the spirit of the bridegroom that
establishes the messiahship of the bride, 1 44 so from the ijabad vantage point,
the essence of infinity, the limitlessness that is above nature , discloses itself
through an act of withdrawal that results in the spectacle of nature, not as a
distinct suprasensible presence but as the metaphysical nihility delimited
Die religiose Denkweise der Chassidim,
within the confines of the physical. In
Levertoff characterized the kabbalistic idea of �m$Um as an expression of
God' s love in the form of ' self-limitation' (Selbstbeschriinkung) and of
' becoming concrete' (Konkret-werden).
145 Moreover Levertoff points out the
,
139
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, pp. 2-3 (32-33).
140
S ignificantly, the epilogue to Love and the Messianic Age is a discussion of ' Love
in the Fourth Gospel.' See ibid., pp.50-60 (73-80).
141
Ibid., p. 51 (74).
1 42
Ibid., p. 5 1 (74).
143
Ibid., pp. 54-55 (76-77).
144
Ibid., pp. 52-53 (75). The language of the bride and the bridegroom is based on
John 3 :29, which is cited by Levertoff.
1 45
Levertoff, Die religiose Denkweise, p. 1 0. Levertoffs presentation of the Lurianic
concept of �m$Um resembles the interpretation offered by Shneur Zalman of Liadi
and his disciples. The assertion that �m$1Jm should not be interpreted literally
means that from the perspective of infinity there cannot be any withdrawal, but
from the perspective of the finite there is nothing but w ithdrawal, since every
manifestation of the infinite light is an occlusion. The immanent presence of
divinity in the world is thus proportionate to the absence of God from the world.
This is the intent of the wordplay of ha-olam, ' the world,' and he '/em,
'concealment,' which appears frequently in I:Iabad literature. see Wolfson, Open
Secret, pp. 26-27, 52, 93, 1 03-1 1 4, 128-29, 1 32, 2 1 5, 2 1 8. On the I:Iabad
interpretation of �m�m, see Rachel Elior, The Paradoxical Ascent to God: The
Kabbalistic Theosophy of Habad Hasidism, translated by Jeffrey M. Green,
306 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
congruence between the ideal of fellowship (koinonia) in the life of the early
Church and the ideal of unity (a}Jdut) in ijasidism: both movements rest on a
social cohesiveness that draws its inspiration from and emulates the portrayal
.
of the Messiah as the 'personification of Divine Love' 1 46 Although that love
finds its greatest instantiation only in the messianic age when the soul-sparks
of all human beings will be restored to primordial Adam, in a way that
replicates the integration of the faithful into the body of Christ, 147 the gift of
light and life is what presently sustains the world and makes possible the
communion of the human with God. Through Jesus the sanctification of the
name (qiddush ha-shem) and the glorification of the divine on earth (John
17:4) is enacted. 1 48
In the current exilic state, human transgression has severed the inherent
connection between nature and divinity, and hence the cosmos itself longs for
redemption-Levertoff corroborates the l}.asidic teaching by citing the
statement of Paul that 'the whole creation groans' (Romans 8:22)--and that
longing inspires human beings to 'unite everything that is seemingly separated
from, and independent of, God, with Him, and so co-operate with Him in His
redemptive activities and prepare the way for the Messiah'. 149 Clearly
influenced by kabbalistic symbolism, and especially as it is inflected in ijabad
teaching, Levertoff links this idea to the notion of searching for and liberating
the divine sparks ' scattered in this world, in man and Nature,' so that they may
be brought 'back to their source' .150 The human being is thus invested with the
task to ' finish what God has deliberately left , unfinished'. At first recoiling
from the insinuation that God would need the help of his creatures, Levertoff
goes so far as to say, in language reminiscent of Heschel, that God 'does need
men,. in order to exercise His kingship,' the disclosure of the Shekhinah in the
world, the heightened messianic realization of immanence, is necessitated by
Albany 1 993, pp. 79-9 1 , esp. 8 8-89; Wolfson, Open Secret, p. 84, and reference to
select primary and secondary sources on p. 336 n. 1 1 2, to which one might add
Schultz, Judaism and the Gentile Faiths, pp. 9 1 -92.
146
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 50 (73).
147
Levertoff's position has been affirmed more recently by Byron L. Sherwin,
'Corpus Domini: Traces of the New Testament in East European Hasidism?'
Heythrop Journa/ 35 ( 1 994), pp, 267-280. See below, n. 2 1 9.
148
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, pp. 5 1 -52 (73). �ee ibid., p. 59 (80).
149
Ibid., p. 1 3 (40).
1 50
Ibid., p. 1 4 (4 1 ). Interestingly, on p. 1 4 n. 24 (4 1 n. 47), Levertoff theorizes that
the divine sparks 'play the same role in the Jewish mystical terminology as in
Plotinus'.
Elliot R. Wolfson 307
the principle ' there is no king without a nation' (ein melekh be-lo am). 1 5 1 The
theurgical inference is drawn explicitly by Levertoff: 'A king needs a people
that accepts his rule voluntarily. God, by virtue of His character, needs a being
to whom He · can reveal Himself, whom He· can· lave ; and throUgh whom He
can shed abroad His light and life . The ultimate issues of this truth are of the
most vital and cosmic significance, for God Himself is qffected by our life. . . .
. 1 52
There is a reciprocal giving and receiving'
The upshot of Levertoff s identification of Jesus and the Shekhinah i s his
assumption that the doctrine of incarnation is typologically foretold in the
verses from the Hebrew b ible that describe the manifestation of the divine. In
the appendix to St. Pau l in Jewish Thought, Levertoff elaborated on this theme .
Turning a stereotypical polemical trope on its head, Levertoff argues that the
materialistic aspect of 'Jewish this-worldliness' is expressive of an ' impatient
longing to see the Divine realized on earth' . 153 The ' Jewish materialism, '
therefore, is a form of religious ' realism, ' which demands that every ideal
construct has a ' visible and touchable materialization' . Quintessentially, the
Jew ' believes in the invisible' but at the same time ' desires that this invisible
should become visible and reveal its power; that it should permeate everything
material, and use the material as a medium and an instrument' . This desire is
expressed not only in the wish to build the Tabernacle or the Temple, but in
viewing all of nature as the 'dwelling place of the Divine-human spirit' . The
criticism of carnal Israel, focusing on the letter or the body, becomes in the .
hands of Levertoff the ' materialization of the spiritual ' that is the foundation
for the Johannine idea of the 'Word becoming Flesh, ' and hence 'the Jewish
people formed the genuine environment for the Incarnation of the Divine
Logos, for which not only a holy, virginal soul was necessary, but also a holy,
pure body' . 1 54
Levertoff s depiction of Judaism in relation to the dogma of Christianity
reflects, in my opinion, the idea of dirah ba-tal;tonim in I:Iabad philosophy.
The midrashic source whence this expression is derived relates more
specifically to the indwelling of the glory in the sacred place of the
151
See, for example, Shneur Zalman o f Liadi, Torah Or, Brooklyn 1 99 1 , 6b. This
source is referred to by Levertoff, Love and Marriage, p. 1 2 n. 23 (40 n. 46),
albeit for a slightly different emphasis. And compare Levertoff, Die religiose
Denkweise, p. I 0.
1 52
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, pp. 1 4- 1 5 (4 1 ), emphasis in original.
153
Levertoff, St. Paul in Jewish Thought,
. p. 52.
1 54 Ibid., p. 53.
308 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
Tabernacle, 155 but for the I;Iabad masters, the idea is extended to encompass the
whole of the cosmos, that is, the material world in its entirety is a place of
· habitation tor· the·· divine. · The task of· spiritualizing the·· material-not · by
negating the corporeal but by transfiguring it156-is assigned singularly to the
Jews, since of all ethnicities they are consubstantial with the essence (a�ut).
The Jews, accordingly, have the capacity to transform the 'created something'
(yesh ha-nivra) into the 'real something' (yesh ha-amitti), which is, in truth, .
nothing, a process that emulates the act of innovation (hitl)addeshut) or the
creation of something out of. nothing, 157 the origination of materiality
(gashmiyyut) from spirituality (rnl)aniyyut), an event that cannot be explained
by the logical sequence of cause and effect (illah we-alul). 158 Levertoff has
appropriated this doctrine, albeit stripped of its theosophical complexity and
ethnocentric specificity, and applied it to the allegedly more universalistic
Christological incarnation: that the Word became flesh is the logical outcome
of this Jewish desire for the tangible materialization of the spirit and the
concrete visualization of the invisible. It is in light of this desire that 'the Jews
became the people of the Messiah'. Levertoff is aware of the chasm between
the two liturgical communities that must be bridged to establish a ' spiritual and.
universal Theocracy'. For the Jews the danger consists that the 'national self.. .
consciousness' will be 'tom from its Divine element,' and then it becomes
'mere Chauvinism,' and the 'realism of the Jewish spirit is then perverted into,
mere Mammonism, which hides the features of genuine Judaism from foreign,.
prejudiced eyes'. For the Christians the hazard is that the alignment of 'world
redemption' with an ideal of 'universal brotherhood,' which is anchored in the
person of Jesus, is both too 'abstract' and too 'narrow' for the Jew. In the finaL
analysis, Jews can be convinced of the truth of Christianity only through actiom
159
that affects individuals in the socio-political arena. Thus, Levertoff declares ,
155
The key rabbinic passage cited by the I:Iabad-Lubavitch masters is Midrash
Tan}Juma, Jerusalem 1 972, Naso, 16, p. 688: 'R. Samuel bar Nal}man said, When
the holy One, blessed be he, created the world, he desired that he would have a
habitation with the beings below just as he had with the beings above'.
156
See my discussion in Open Secret, pp. 1 30-1 60. The fundamental doctrine of
I:Iabad centered around the transfiguration of the corporeal, connected especially
to the spiritual value of eating to redeem the soul-sparks and to restore them to the
divine, is mentioned by Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 42 (66) with
some of the relevant sources noted.
157
Menal;lem Mendel Schneerson, Liqqu{ei Sif;lot, Brooklyn 1 999, 12:74-75.
158
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Torah Or, 92b.
159
Levertoff, St. Paul in Jewish Thought, p. 54.
Elliot R. Wolfson 309
that the ' compassion of Jesus for human suffering and need' is not a ' mere
emotion, but is always translated into action' that reveals the 'will of the
Father, ' a sign intended to manifest the divine glory and to awaken people' s
160
faith irt the · Messiah. ··�tr ·vacabulary ···distinctive·· to i:Iaba.d, · · Leverloff asserls
that through the agency of the love of Jesus the heart of the believer is
transformed into a ' habitation' for the holy spirit, and in facilitating this ' new
1
birth,' the ' highest expectation of the Messianic Age is fully realised' . 6 1 The
spiritual phenomenon of conversion is also branded the ' circumcision of the
heart, ' which is identified (as it is in I:Iabad lore 1 62) as the act of repentance that
1 3
frees the Shekhinah from her exile. 6
The conceptual framework of the sixth chapter of Love and the Messianic
Age, "Repentance and Love," is based entirely on the ijabad notion of
repentance as the mode of worship that issues from the ' depth of the heart'
(umqa de-libba), the ' abundant love' (ahavah rabbah), and the ' desire'
164
(}Jashiqah) of the 'parched soul' (nefesh shoqeqah) to be conjoined to God, a
mode of worship that exceeds the parameters of the law, insofar as the
repentant has the capacity to transmute acts of premeditated malice into
meritorious acts , according to the talmudic dictum attributed by Reish
Laqish, 1 65 which is c ited frequently in ijabad sources to portray repentance as
the hypernomian excess that is concomitantly the very foundation of the law . 1 66
This hypernomian element is the meaning that the I:Iabad masters impute to the
statement attributed to Rav, 1 67 ' All the predestined times [for redemption] have
passed and the matter is dependent on repentance and good deeds, ' epitomized
in the saying of the Frierdiker Rebbe, Yosef Yi�l).aq Schneersohn, ' forthwith to
repentance , forthwith to redemption' (le 'altar li-teshuvah le 'altar li
ge 'ullah), 168 that is, repentance is the form of pious devotion that surpasses the
law to the extent that it is expressive of the coincidence of opposites whereby
160
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 54 (76).
161
Ibid. , p. 6 0 (80).
162
Compare Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqqu{:ei Amarim: Tanya, pt. 4, ch. 4, 1 05b.
The passage is cited and translated in Levertoff, Die religiOse Denkweise, pp. 1 60-
1 63 . On the nexus between circumcision and repentance in I:Iabad, see Wolfson,
Open Secret, pp. 53-54.
163
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p . 4 1 (65).
164
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqqu{:ei A marim: Tanya, pt. I , ch. 7, 1 2a.
1 65
Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 86b.
1 66
Wolfson, Open Secret, pp. 56, 1 8 1 , 323 n. 1 35 , 366 n. 88.
167
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 97b.
1 68
Wolfson, Open Secret, pp. 3 , 20, 278, 280-28 1 , 304-305 n. 1 8.
310 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization o f Kabbalah
The love of man to God which comes from the keeping of the Law is a love which
proceeds from the 'outer side' o f the heart but the love which the repentant sinner
feels for God comes from within the heart. The 'sin-forgiving love' of God is said
to come from the 'will o f all wills,' that is, from the innermost sphere of God's
heart, which is above His will that is revealed in the Law. This 'will of all wills'
171
will be perfectly manifested in Messianic times.
Building on the rabbinic sentiment that the sinner who repents stands in a
higher position than the one who is completely righteous, Levertoff notes th�t
the love that is correlated with obedience to the law is a lower form located in
the exterior heart, whereas the love that is associated with forgiveness
172
occasioned by repentance but ' independent of man's piety and good works'
is the higher form located in the interior heart, which is identified as the 'will
of all wills,' a translation of the locution used in the Idra Zuta stratum of the
169
Ibid., pp. 3 , 1 67, 1 69, 1 7 1 , 1 8 1 , 1 82, 1 9 1 , 200-20 1 , 263, 274, 279-280, 284.
1 70
Dov Baer Schneersohn, Sha 'arei Orah, Brooklyn 1 997, 40a. See also Wolfson,
Open Secret, p. 55 and reference given on p. 322 n. 1 30. The hypemtunian
character of repentance is underscored in the observation of Menal)em Mendel
Schneerson, Torat Mena}Jem: Hitwwa 'aduyyot 571 7, Brooklyn 200 1 , 1 :209, that
even though repentance is ' above the Torah,' it is still 'elicited from the Torah'. A ·
similar point is made in the passage from Menal}.em Mendel Schneerson, Torat
Mena]Jem: Hitwwa 'aduyyot 5714, Brooklyn 1 999, 3 : 1 80- 1 8 1 , translated in
Wolfson, Open Secret, p. 1 80, and see analysis on p. 1 82.
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 44 (67-68). The passage is repeate4
171
1 73
Zohar 3 :2 8 8b (ldra Zuta). The related expression ra 'awa de-ra 'awin occurs
several times in the zoharic anthology: Zohar 2 : 88b, 1 76b (Sifra di- $eni 'uta),
253b; 3 : 1 29a, 1 37b (ldra Rabba), 2 88b, 290a (Idra Zuta).
1 74
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Torah Or, 84a, 92b; idem, Liqqu(ei Torah, Devarim, 99c.
175
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Torah Or, 92b.
1 76
Ibid., 84a.
1 77
Ibid., 1 06a.
1 78
Ibid. , 1 2 1 a.
1 79
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqqutei Torah, Wayyiqra, 20d-2 l a.
1 80
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqqu(ei Torah, Shir ha-Shirim, 23c.
181
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqqutei Torah, Devarim, 22a. O n the depiction of the
Torah emerging from the ' supernal will,' the ' will of all wills,' see ibid., Shir ha
Shirim, 23d.
182
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Ma 'amerei Admor ha-Zaqen 5566, Brooklyn 2005,
2 :672.
3 12 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
.
repentance. 1 83 The inclination to repent is a 'mysterious matter' (devar pele)
that arises from the illumination of ye.(Jidah, the highest facet of the soul
···allocated··uniquelyto··the Jew,·· the 'point ofthe··heart' (nequddat na-/evkwhich
is 'above knowledge, ' 1 84 the 'source of every will, which is called the will for
6
the will' .185 Inasmuch as the Messiah is rooted . in ye}Jidah, 1 8 the essential and
simple will above reason and intellect, the unity beyond all division and
partition, it follows that repentance is the mode of worship best equipped to
7
bring about the consciousness apposite to messianic enlightenment. 1 8
Liturgically, the most propitious moment (et ra§Vn) for the supernal will to be
activated is on Sabbath at the time of the afternoon prayer (minl.zahi88 or on
Yom Kippur at the time of Ne 'i/ah, 1 89 but these are portents of the future when
the self-sacrifice (mesirat nefesh) of the superior form of repentance (teshuvah
illa 'ah) will trigger the complete and perfect salvation, and the 'will of all
wills,' the aspect of Keter that is within Keter, the 'concealed of all the
passage from Shneur Zalman of Liadi translated and analyzed in Wolfson, Open
Secret, pp 73-74.
186
.
For the earlier sources where the correlation between the Messiah and ye]Jidah is
made, see ijayyim Vital, Sefer ha-Gilgulim, Przemysl 1 875, ch. 60, 82b; Liqqutei
Torah, Jerusalem 1 995, p. 33 (ad Genesis. 5:24); Liqqufei ha-Shas me-ha-Ari znl,
edited, with preface and notes, by Betsalel Senior, Jerusalem 2010, p. 66; Moses
Zacuto, Perush ha-ReMeZ la-Zohar ha-Qadosh: Sefor Devarim, Jerusalem 2005,.
pp. 9- 1 0.
1 87
Wolfson Open Secret, pp. 8, 1 29, 1 83- 1 84, 275, 367 n. 96. I have revisited this
topic, substantiated by citation of some additional texts, in my 'Open Secret in the
Rearview Mirror,' Association for Jewish Studies Review 35 (201 1 ), pp. 401-41 8,
an abbreviated version of the much longer study 'Revealing and Re/veiling
tradition, see Sod ha-Shabbat (Fhe Mystery of the Sabbath) from the To/a 'at
Ya 'aqov of R. Meir ibn Gabbai, translated and with a critical commentary by
Elliot K. Ginsburg, Albany 1 989, p. 1 86 n. 449 The theme is repeated often in
. .
I:Iabad literature. For example; see Schneersohn, Sha 'arei Teshuvah, 1 3 0a; idem,
Tarat lfayyim: Shemot, Brooklyn 2003, 359b, 360c; Menal}.em Mendel
Schneerson, Torat Mena/Jem: Hitwwa 'aduyyot 571 7, Brooklyn 200 1 , 2 : 1 0S.
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqqutei Torah, Derushim le-Yom ha-Kippurim, 70b;
1 89
1 90
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Torah Or, 84b; see also 1 2 l a; idem, Ma 'amerei Admor
ha-Zaqen 5566, Brooklyn 2004, 1 :424; Schneersohn, Sha 'arei Teshuvah, 1 30c. In
some passages, the variant expression setimu de-khol setimin (Zohar 2 : 1 6 l a) is
used; see Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqqu{ei Torah, Derushim le-Ro'sh ha-Shanah,
56c.
191
Shneur Zalman of Liadi, L iqqu{ei Torah, Bemidbar, 1 3b.
192
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 45 (68).
193
See above, n. 1 67 .
194
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 97a.
195
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 45 (68).
196
Ibid., p. 17 (43).
197
Ibid.
314 Paul Phi1ip Levertoff and the Popularization of Kabbalah
than pure legalism. 198 The divine wisdom, which is ' above human
understanding' and in which the vitality of God is 'enwrapped and hidden.,' 1 99
is identified as this 'innermost secret,' the 'Law of Love' that is 'derived from
the love of God'. Even though most Jews can attain this 'high spiritual
experience ' only 'by unceasing effort and unquestioning obedience to the
Law, ' the fact of the matter is that the wholehearted love of God is a state that
is beyond the nomian compliance to the commandments, and hence those who
experience it 'live in harmony with the Divine Will, independent of the Law'.200
The mandate to love God translates into the love for the divine essence that is
in each human being, and this is valued more than the outward keeping of the
whole Law, for while the function of the external law is to circumscribe
boundaries by keeping the permissible and the forbidden separate, the telos of
the internal law is the implementation of the limitless love that effaces these
very boundaries.201 Toward the end of the chapter, Levertoff takes it a step
further by arguing that 'the Messianic Age will bring not merely a revelation of
the hidden meaning of the old Law, but a new Revelation'.202 The phrase ' new
Revelation' is plausibly Levertoff's way of translating the I:Iabad notion of the
' new teaching' (torah .(Jadashah) to be revealed by the Messiah?03 The Mosaic
and Messianic revelations are distinguished in the following parabolic way: the
union achieved by the former is like that between the bride and bridegroom,
whereas the union achieved by the latter is the more perfect union between
husband and wife. Alternatively expressed, the &inaitic revelation manifested
the 'outer side of the divine will,' but in the days of the Messiah the ' inner
nature of God' will be disclosed and humanity will be perfected.204 Utilizing
the formulation of Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Levertoff concludes that we rejoice
in the taw because it is the ' revelation of God,' but we experience delight05
198
Ibid., p. 1 9 {44-45).
199
Ibid., p. 36 {60).
200
Ibid., p. 20 {45), emphasis in original. See Wolfson, Open Secret, pp. 7 1 -72.
201
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 21 {46).
202
Ibid., p. 22 {47).
203
On the expression torah .(Jadashah, see Wolfson, Open Secret, pp. 1 7 1 - 1 72, 1 93-
1 94, 370-3 7 1 n. 1 44.
204
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 23 {47-48).
205
Levertofrs use of the term ' delight' reflects the expression ta 'anug in I:Iabad
texts, the spiritual pleasure that is rooted in the boundless will of the infinite
essence. See Wolfson� Open Secret, pp. 94-9 5 , 1 78, 340 n. 1 60, 375 n. 4 1 , to
which many more sources could be added. For discussion of ta 'anug in I:Iasidism,
see ldel, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic, pp. 1 33-140, 234-235; idem,
Elliot R. Wolfson 315
when the ' deepest spiritual meaning,' the 'Divine mysteries of the Law, ' will
6
be ' unfolded by the Messiah, and we shall see God face to face' .20
The crucial thing to note is that there is no categorical rejection of the law
here, but only an insistence on its deeper spiritual meaning and a warning of
the danger that for some the fulfillment of the law becomes the end in itself
rather than the means to an end. Indeed, Levertoff adopts another central idea
of ijabad religious philosophy, first expressed by Shneur Zalman, although its
roots are much older in the Jewish esoteric tradition: insofar as the Torah is one
with God, it follows that the commandments, which reveal God's will and
wisdom, are the proper channel through which one can be united with the
divine.207 It is thus 'not an exaggeration to speak of this conception of the Law,
as the Jewish doctrine of the "real Presence"' ?08 By identifying the Torah as
the Presence, the paths of Christianity and ijasidism crisscross. The extent to
which the Law is not rejected Is underscored by Levertoff's explanation that
the cloud that surrounded Moses, which sustained him for the forty days and
nights that he was on Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, ' is
symbolical of the Law. It also emanates from God Himself and becomes
Israel' s spiritual food, and, if they duly receive it, God's will embodies itself in
their thoughts, words, and deeds' . 209 The ' innermost secret' of the Torah
exceeds the nomian prohibitions and obligations, but it does so not by negating
them. ijasidism does promote a 'more excellent way'21 0 of ' Jewish traditional
piety' than ' Legalism,'2 1 1 but the spiritual experience of love beyond the law
in the ijabad terminology used by Levertoff, tlie 'Grace of Truth' (}Jesed di
qesho/)2 1 2-is attained by obedience to the law and not by its abrogation. The
Kabbalah and Eros, pp. 228-229; idem, 'Ta'anug: Erotic Delights From
Kabbalah to Hasidism,' in Hidden Intercourse: Eros and SexualitY in the History
of Western Esotericism,. ed. Wouter J. Hanegraaff and Jeffrey J. Kripal, Leiden
2008, pp. 1 3 1-145.
206
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 34 {58). Compare Wolfson, Open
Secret, pp. 1 1 8- 1 20.
207
Wolfson, Open Secret, pp. 59, 74-75, 145 .
208
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 1 8 (44).
209
Ibid., pp. 1 8- 1 9 {44).
210
1 Corinthians 1 2:3 1 .
211
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p . 1 9 (45).
212
Ibid., p. 23 (48), based on Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Liqqutei Torah, Bemidbar,
S la-b.
316 Paul Philip Levertoff and the Popularization o f Kabbalah
213
On the hypemomian transvaluation of the Torah in I:Iabad messianism, see
Wolfson, Open Secret, pp. 55-56, 1 61 - 1 99.
2 14
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 3 (33). On the identification of Moses
as the 'first redeemer' and the Messiah as the 'last redeemer,' see ibid., p. 54 (76).
For the importance of this topic in I:Iabad, see Wolfson, Open Secret, pp. 17 and
3 1 1 n. 93, to which many more sources could have been added.
215
See Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 3 n. I (32 n. 2 1 ), where the view of
Richard Reitzenstein that Philo's term 'men of vision' (oratikois andrasin), which
is applied to the allegorists, is borrowed from the ancient mystery cults is
challenged. Philo, it will be recalled, famously rendered the etymology of Israel as
the •one who sees God,' which in Hebrew translates into ish ra 'ah el, an
apparently older play on words that is attested implicitly in some Gnostic texts
from Late Antiquity and explicitly in at least one later midrashic compilation,
Seder Eliyahu Rabbah. See Wolfson, Through a Speculum, p. 50, and references
to primary and secondary sources cited there in nn. 1 58- 1 62.
2 16
In the more recent edition of the text (see following note for reference), the 'world
to be' is changed to the more familiar expression 'world to come.'
217
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 4 (33-34).
218
Ibid., p. 3 (32).
219
Levertoff's interpretation of l,lasidic messianism as primarily spiritual as opposed
to political is in accord with the position taken by a number of scholars, some of
whom have even noted the resemblance of l;Iasidism and Christianity on this
point. Particularly relevant is the debate between Scholem and Taubes. See Moshe
ldel, Messianic }Jystics, New Haven 1 998, pp. 2 1 2-247, esp. 240-24 1 , and my
Elliot R. Wolfson 317
22 1
Levertoff, Love and the Messianic Age, p. 5 (34-35).
222
Ibid., p. 6 (35). .
223
Ibid., p. 54 (76).
224
Ibid., p. 42 (66).
225
•
It is noteworthy that Levertoff ends Love and the Messianic Age by citing the
entirety of 1 Corinthians 1 3, which he calls 'St. Paul's Hymn of Love. ' As a
number of scholars have noted, the distinction made by Paul in I Corinthians
1 3 : 1 2 between seeing dimly and seeing face to face should be. compared to the
rabbinic tradition in Babylonian Talmud, Yevamot 49b, where Moses is said to
have had his vision through a translucent mirror and the other prophets through an
opaque mirror. See also Midrash Wayyikra Rabbah, ed. Mordecai Margulies, New
York and Jerusalem 1993, 1 : 1 4, pp. 30-3 1 , where two opinions are offered to
explain the difference between Moses and the other prophets: according to R.
Judah bar Ilai, all the prophets saw through nine mirrors and Moses saw through
one mirror; according to the Rabbis, all the prophets saw through a tainted mirror
and Moses saw through a polished mirror. On the connection between the Pauline
and rabbinic sources, see Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum
Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, Munich 1 926, vol. 3, p. 453; Brad H.
Young, 'The Ascension Motif of 2 Corinthians 12 in Jewish, Christian, and
Elliot R. Wolfson 3 19
Gnostic Texts, ' Grace Theological Journal 9 ( 1 988), pp. 84-85 n. 32; Wolfson,
Through a Speculum, p. 26 n. 69.
226
See Morna D. Hooker, ' Beyond the Things That Are Written? St. Paul's Use of
Scripture,' New Testament Studies 27 ( 1 98 1 ), p. 30 1 ; Jerome Murphy-O'Connor
OP, Paul: A Critical Life, Oxford 1 996, pp. 3 1 0-3 1 1 ; James D. G. Dunn, The
Theology ofPaul the Apostle, Grand Rapids 1 998, pp. 42 1 -422; Daniel Boyarin, A
Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity, Berkeley 1 994, pp. 1 0 1 - 1 03 ;
Mehrdad Fatehi, The Spirit 's Relation to the Risen Lord in Paul, Tiibingen 2000,
pp. 275-308, esp. 289-302.
227
Of the many studies that deal with this chapter in Paul, I offer a modest sampling:
Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, pp. 1 47- 1 50; Boyarin, A Radical Jew,
pp. 97- 1 05; Karl Kertelge, ' Letter and Spirit in 2 Corinthians, ' in Paul and the
Mosaic Law, ed. James D. G. Dunn, Grand Rapids 200 1 , pp. 1 1 7- 1 30; Gordon D.
Fee, Pauline Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Study, Peabody 2007, pp.
1 74- 1 85; Volker Rabens, The Holy Spirit and Ethics in Paul: Transformation and
Empowering for Religious-Ethical Life, Tiibingen 20 1 0, pp. 1 74-203 .
See the detailed philological analysis in Rabens, The Holy Spirit, pp. 1 78- 1 82.
228
John Ashton, The Religion of Paul the A postle, New Haven 2000, pp. 1 36- 1 3 7.
229
unequivocally in the next chapter of 2 Corinthians as the ' icon of God' (4:4),
an identification that informed the depiction of Jesus in Colossians 1 : 1 5 as the
'image ofthe invisible God [eikon·· tou· theou· · tou aoratou], the ··frrst-bom · ofall
creation' ( l : 1 5). On this reading, to behold the glory in the mirror signifies that
the image of the .invisible is apprehended through the speculum of the text,
which further implies tha� for those who have eyes to see, Scripture
adumbrates the coming of the eschatological transformation.230 Paul' s exegesis
is reminiscent of the rabbinic tradition that Moses saw God through a
translucent mirror as opposed to all other prophets, who saw through an opaque
mirror231-Moses, too, can only see the glory through a mirror; there is no
direct vision. The unveiling of the veil, therefore, is a seeing of the veil through
the veil, that is, seeing that there is no way to see but through a veil; even
indeed especially-matters unseen must be seen in a mirror/veil. Translated
gnoseologically, the messianic vision bespeaks the discernment that the reality
of the world is not separate from the divine, that nature is the embodiment of
what is beyond nature. For Levertoff, the Word made flesh is the truest
execution of the )J.asidic directive to materialize the spiritual by spiritualizing
the material, to render the invisible visible by rendering the visible invisible.